


Touch

by Thyra279



Series: In the Beginning (or Thereabouts) [1]
Category: Good Omens, Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Canon Compliant, Character Study, Crowley's Name is Crawly | Crawley (Good Omens), Dialogue, Extended Scene, Let's have another take on The Wall, M/M, Master manipulator Crawly, Not relationship yet but they get there eventually, Of course you know, Other, Scene: Garden of Eden (Good Omens), They're all new and a bit sceptical, breaking the first wall, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23684719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thyra279/pseuds/Thyra279
Summary: "Shall we sit down?""Huh?""Shall we, uhm, sit?" He mimes taking a seat to the best of his abilities on the now mostly-dry wall. The demon looks incredulous."What are you doing?""Really, Crawly, this was item iiv of chapter 1 of the memos. There were diagrams and everything." He plonks himself down, crosses his legs, and pats the wall by Crawly demonstratively with an outstretched arm. "You ought to try it, it relieves some pressure from your feet."Eventually, the demon relents, folding in the many limbs of his body until one foot rests precariously on the edge of the wall, knee towards the sky, the other knee on the edge to allow his foot to dangle freely. The rest of his lanky body declines against his elbows, leaving his head to carry the heavy responsibility of looking utterly bewildered and his striking black wings to flap haphazardly behind them. "Like this?""Close enough," Aziraphale offers, politely.---An angel and a demon carry on their conversation on a certain wall and get drenched. Aziraphale teaches Crawly how to sit. Sort of. Both are gagging... for some good conversation. Part 1 of my own headcanon of them getting to terms with Earth.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: In the Beginning (or Thereabouts) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705549
Comments: 21
Kudos: 63





	Touch

_We pick up the story not quite at the Beginning, but close enough for now._

"It'd be funny if we both got it wrong, eh? If I did the good thing and you did the bad."

"No! It wouldn't be funny at all!"

There's a wall, a desert, the sky, and clouds. Not much else to see out there and yet it is the best show in the world. An angel and a demon watch from atop the wall as the skies above Earth break for the first time ever and rain pours across the desert. The demon takes a wobbly half-step to his right, the first step he has taken on Earth in this near-human corporation. An angelwing comes up to cover him.

"What's this, then?"

"I believe it's called rain. Or maybe snow. It was in the memos, I think, but there was so much in there."

"It's very… ngh."

"What's that?"

"It's very… wet?"

"It is a bit, isn't it?"

"D'you know if this is what it's gonna be like from now on, then?" The demon gestures vaguely outwards, looks to his wallmate. The angel shrugs.

They stand there silently dripping, shoulder to shoulder, looking out across the great expanse of unknown at the foot of the wall. One thinks of the endless possibilities ahead, the other of all the dangers out there.

Night replaces its newly invented twin, and the two observers-turned-actors slowly learn what it means to be wet to the bone.

They stand there for hours, the demon just a little drier than the angel. It is all still rather new, this Earth Business, and neither of them is quite sure what to make of, well, any of it, really. There is an awful lot to take in even at this early stage, from the invasive sensation of raindrops trickling down their young backs to the flat taste of their newly created mouths. It isn't the first time they've had to get used to a new dimension or taken on a new shape; far from it, but these bipedal material-type corporations they've been assigned are very odd. Really very odd indeed.

* * *

In the far distance, two little dots have huddled up together, finding a whisper of shelter against a scraggly group of trees. Darkness slowly settles around them until all that Aziraphale can see of them is the faint glow of a stubbornly flaming sword. A soft crease has already made itself at home between his golden eyebrows, showing amazing foresight at such a young age, and his soft hands cling on to each other tightly all through the night.

He rather likes that sensation, he decides, the warmth and dryness of his palms keeping a little piece of his new self safe from the unrelenting wind and rain/snow/there was something called _hail_ in the intro pack too, wasn't there, but he's fairly certain this isn't it. And it _does_ feel rather wet and a little uncomfortable, but he's fairly certain he isn't _freezing_ as such and wasn't snow supposed to be very cold indeed, so surely this is rain but still, the wet and the wind is not very comfortable and oh, he does hope that the humans aren't cold out there in their fig leaves, but at least they have the sw- _oh no_ but at least they have each other to keep warm and safe and-

"Oh, I am _so_ sorry, Crawly, I rather lost myself in thought."

Six and a half hours after their last exchange, Aziraphale starts and turns to his companion. The demon looks away, the streak of his yellow eyes ominously clear even in the nearly perfect dark.

In millennia to come, they will think nothing of a conversational gap of a mere six and a half hours. Here at the Beginning, however, where a mere few hours equate to a good chunk of their new existence, Aziraphale considers himself rather rude.

* * *

The angel startles well, Crawly thinks. He considers asking him for his name, but doesn't. "Oh, not at all. I was enjoying the silence."

"Oh." The angel's face falls. There's an extraordinary amount of life going on in that face, much more than anywhere else around them. Crawly studies it quietly in the darkness. It rises again, scrunches up with worry as it settles upon the two little humans in the distance and the angel's flaming sword.

"It's been a while since I've heard it," the demon adds by way of explanation. Not that he needs to explain himself to an angel. Still, it makes him look away from the humans again and back at Crawly, angelic eyebrows pressing together in concentration.

"Heard what exactly?"

"The silence."

"Ah… How does one… _hear_ silence exactly?"

"Dunno. This whole thing, it's a bit weird, isn't it. Though it's kind of refreshing, I suppose."

"I see." The drenched angel says, sounding confused.

"Gets very crowded downstairs, you know. Humid, too. Noisy as anything."

" _Oh_. Well, I wouldn't know anything about that, being an angel. I've never been anywhere near… _down there_ , of course." Words spill out of him with all the fervor of the gushing waterfall behind them in Eden. Somewhere in Crawly's ancient, newly-formed consciousness a memory of the hushed voices and repressed reverence of certain parts of Then tinkles. " _We_ get a lot of quiet time. A lot of- of peace and quiet. Time for contemplation-" the angel startles again. "Or rather – veneration, of course…" He clears his throat, lets out a little strangled chuckle. "Not quite sure I've got the hang of this voice box thing yet. We can go back to the silence. If you'd prefer."

Crawly shrugs and shakes his head, but the angel doesn't seem to see.[1] He blinks, looks towards Crawly a little longer, then stares back out towards the horizon. Time passes. His obscenely blond curls flutter in the wind now that the rain (?) has calmed down. Eventually, Crawly shifts to lean on his other newly-made foot. They're disgusting things, feet, Crawly has already decided. Stupid design. Barely used at all and already tired.

"So. What do you make of this whole Earth business anyway?" Some more time passes, and the sun rises slowly, colouring his companion golden. The angel is very good at being still too. Crawly supposes being good at being still must be a prerequisite for startling so well.

"…What do I _make_ of it?" The angel sounds a bit hoarse.

"Mmh. It's all a bit odd, isn't it? This little ball of blue in the middle of nowhere in a dodgy area of this universe. The whole time and space thing – I mean, I'm all for the aesthetic, don't get me wrong-"

"Right-"

"But what's with all the sand and this _garden_ with all those _plants_ and _animals_ that we can and can't touch _._ Oh, and never mind the whole "forbidden tree" malarky, what makes these _humans_ so damn special in the grand scheme of things?" The angel flinches again at the profanity, and Crawly rather likes it.

"Oh, I'm sure they'll be wonderful. The Almighty has great plans for them, you know."

"They look ridiculous. Why not walk on all fours like all the cool animals do-"

"Oh no, this is much more dignified I'm sure-"

"Or make away with all these wobbly limbs altogether, much more aerodynamic-"

"Crawly, I-"

"And what's up with all these teeth? Who needs this much _skin_?"

"Oh, I'm sure that'll all come in handy. We _just_ have to get used to it," the angel says, frowning and smiling at the same time.

"Well, that's my point. What's so terrific about these _humans_ that we're being forced into these… these _corporations_ just to look like them?"

"You ask a lot of questions, Crawly," the angel smarts, quite obliviously. For the first time since slithering up the wall, Crawly considers leaving. "And in any case, I thought you said this was all rather refreshing."

"Hmph," Crawly snarls. The angel doesn't notice, staring out towards the humans in the distance.

"In any case, I'm sure you don't have to stay in this corporation _all_ of the time if you don't want to. It's just another option for you, isn't it? I mean, you clearly have that serpent shape on hand, very clever disguise, might I add. _I'_ d never considered that a demon might take the form of an innocent animal, I was all on the lookout for something altogether more striking, looking rather more like this, as it were…" He points towards Crawly's corporation in the sharp morning light. "You know, more, uhm, ethereal."

"M'not ethereal, I'm occult." Crawly stares at him, clicks the _t_ on his many teeth for good measure. "So you think that whole serpent thing was good, then?"

"Oh, not good, no, don't you worry about that, but it's a job jolly well done on your part, isn't it?"

"But you thought the snake _design_ was good- or, erh, cool?"

The angel nods rigorously. "Oh, it was very clever. I should've been better prepared, I suppose, should have expected all eventualities. We were warned about the wily ways of the… other side. I expect I'll get a bit of a reprimand from one of the archangels – Gabriel probably," for a moment, the angel looks a little put off, "although really, we were waiting for it to happen. The temptation attempt, I mean."

"You… _knew_ they'd get tempted by me?"

"We knew you- or, well, _someone_ , would try; their reaction was up to them, poor doves. Although it must have been part of the Plan, of course. So I suppose it was both a good and a bad thing, which makes it just par for the course. It just is, as it were. You did your duty, we did ours as best we could. Evil 1: Good 0, until the rematch. I'll certainly be better prepared next time around, foul fiend," the angel chuckles, shakes his fist at him. 

"Next time?"

"Yes. We'll be engaging in a grand old struggle for humanity."

" _We_ will?"

"Good and Evil will; Heaven and Earth. _Really_ , Crawly, did you not get the memos?"

"Oh, I flicked through them."

The angel tuts, a frown on his smug little face. "You really ought to pay attention, you know. I assume your side is a great deal less organised and all, but shirking your duty is simply _unforgivable_ , Crawly." There's a pang of something in Crawly's chest. The rising sun has ignited the angel's pale blond hair, lighting it up like the halo he isn't currently showing off. The whole thing looks ridiculous, Crawly thinks.

"Well, next time you're thwarting us evil guys _so well_ , you will of course have to make do without that cool flaming sword," he snarls.

He doesn't need to even use their material corporations to know that his strike was successful; his true self _feels_ the angel take the hit in some whisper of another dimension. Crawly turns to leave, and three things happen almost simultaneously.

He feels a sharp flash of satisfaction at the angel's distress and an even greater wave of something dully painful in his gut. If Crawly were one of these ridiculous angels, he might mistake it for regret or even guilt, but it must be some stupid malfunction of this ludicrous corporation. He feels a smaller, pointed pain in his scalp when he turns to leave and realises that a tangle of his long hair has gotten caught in the angel's wing in the rainstorm overnight. He jerks his head back to free it, unsuccessfully, and spots the look of anguish in the angel's eyes.

"Oh, come on," he sighs, more softly than intended. "I'm only joking, angel. I'm sure your sword trick was part of it too, you know. Great plan, like the apple thing. You did good; I did evil, don't worry about it. It's what we do."

The angel nods half-heartedly but doesn't answer or look at him, clumsy young fingers fretting at his white feathers to detangle the hair from his wing above Crawly. "And you did the humans a solid with that flaming sword; if they are to be the Almighty's _favourites_ , helping them out can't be a bad thing, can it?"

"I suppose. But as you know, She _did_ say She was going to be testing them and I'm not sure that…"

"…Well, did the Almighty explicitly tell you not to help out the humans?"

"Uhm. No – quite the contrary, in fact; I was told to protect them. Her exact orders were to come down here to 'guard humanity'."

"Well, there you go then." Crawly watches as cheer trickles back into the angel's eyes and a little smile snakes across his lips. At that moment, he chooses, wisely, not to bring up the finer nuances between guarding, protecting and keeping under surveillance.

* * *

The demon's hair is damp and soft, a little coarser on Aziraphale's fingers than the softness of his own feathers. He managed to free the hair several moments ago, truth be told, but he hasn't quite let go of it yet. There isn't anything like this colour in all of Eden and it looks stunning against his white wing. Beautiful against the sharp angles of his companion. Aziraphale shifts the lock just slightly in his hands, ever so gently, to see it gleam in the early morning sun. It burns like the flame from his sword, though deeper and in a thousand different shades. Like a fire. Hellfire, perhaps.

Aziraphale drops the strand of hair. "There." Tucks his wings behind his back. "Shall we sit down?"

"Huh?"

"Shall we, uhm, sit?" He mimes taking a seat to the best of his abilities on the now mostly-dry wall. The demon looks incredulous.

"What are you doing?"

"Really, Crawly, this was item iiv of chapter 1. There were diagrams and everything." He plonks himself down, crosses his legs, and pats the wall by Crawly demonstratively with an outstretched arm. "You ought to try it, it relieves some pressure from your feet."

Eventually, the demon relents, folding in the many limbs of his body until one foot rests precariously on the edge of the wall, knee towards the sky, the other knee on the edge to allow his foot to dangle freely. The rest of his lanky body declines against his elbows, leaving his head to carry the heavy responsibility of looking utterly bewildered and his striking black wings to flap haphazardly behind them. "Like _this_?"

"Close enough," Aziraphale offers, politely.

"Erhh, right. So, what do you like about my snake?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"The snake. My design." The demon is looking away from him again.

"I believe I already said it was very effective."

"Yeah, but I haven't really had a chance to get feedback on it, you see. I mean, it obviously got the job done. But it took quite a while to get right, I put a lot of thought into it to tell you the truth. So what did you think, let's workshop it. Honest opinion?"

"Workshop it? You… created an entirely new corporation? By yourself?" Aziraphale's mouth falls open on its own, which is odd, but somehow feels right in the situation.

"Yup." Crawly's face is all sharp angles in the dawning sunlight. His entire corporation looks severe, unbothered, though a little grin that Aziraphale is fairly certain the demon hasn't noticed rather undercuts the overall effect. "As I said, I was just told to come up here and make some trouble. There's a nice bit of leeway in that. Didn't say how to do it."

"Is that… is that _allowed_?"

Crawly sniffs, leans in conspiratorially. "Didn't see anywhere that stated it wasn't. You know, explicitly." He winks with those sharp yellow eyes, unmistakably demonic. Aziraphale leans away a little. "So, come on, what did you think? It's huge, right?"

"Oh yes, absolutely enormous. So you… made it all on your own?"

"Yup. Always liked creating things, me."

" _Creating_ things?" Aziraphale can't help a swift glance upwards. "On your own?"

"Completely on my own, yeah."

"Without any… guidance?"

"Yeah."

"Huh."

"What?"

"Only I thought…" The demon's leaning in again. "Only I assumed… well, I mean, your name is Crawly."

"Errhm, yeah, what about it." Aziraphale wonders if it isn't rather impolite of the demon not to ask him his name. But then, this is a demon, a bit of rudeness is to be expected, of course.

"Well, your name _is_ Crawly. Did you- did you come up with that yourself?"

The demon shrugs. He's rather good at shrugging already, makes a bit of a show of it, Aziraphale thinks. "Nah. Was assigned."

"Right. So your name is _Crawly_. And the design that you came up with all by yourself is a… _serpent_."

For just a moment, the demon looks appalled. Aziraphale decides right then to swallow down his next question, resigning himself to quietly wondering whether the demon is aware of the really rather snake-like mark by his right ear.

"Nggh. Well. Yeah. Uhm…"

The angel can't help but smile, glancing over. His wall companion's dazed expression makes for an oddly soft look on his sharp face. Aziraphale strokes the dry warmth of his own hands, wonders whether all those sharp angles feel very different to his own corporation. "Your design goes very well with the overall aesthetic, is all."

"Hmgh."

They fall back on silence. The midday sun has dried off the last evidence of the night's stormy rain(snow?)fall. It burns against Aziraphale's soft skin and he finds himself missing the heavy grey clouds on the open blue skies. The wall turns warm, then hot, then scorching. Crawly has given up on sitting entirely in favour of sprawling out flat against the stone.

"You know, we have another corporation too."

* * *

"What's that?" Crawly has gotten lost in the warm, dry heat on the wall, completely different from the suffocating humidity of anything Hell has provided him. He basks in it, lets the sun soak through to his many bones. It's almost too hot, very nearly unbearable, but there's an absentminded breeze coming off the angel's fluttering wings that balances things out nicely.

"I said, we have another corporation too. Us angels. For Earth."

"Right."

"…It was in the-"

"-in the memos?"

"…Yes."

"…Go on then."

"You could just look it up."

"I could, couldn't I?"

"I bet you won't."

"Won't I?" Crawly thinks up the memos, which he swears have grown from a few chapters to a veritable jungle of additional chapters, addendums and footnotes in the _very short time_ since he last paid them any attention.

"Bloody Hell, this Earth thing has gotten huge."

"It's chapter 227. Section 95, I believe."

"Uhm, that's on toothaches."

"Well, it's somewhere around there."

"I've got, let's see. I've got "Toothaches", "Nail Fungi", "Hemorrhoids", "Non-… _non-regular bowel movements_ " – _eurgh_ \- in this chapter."

"That can't be right."

"Chapter's called 'Minor Maladies to Disperse Freely at Your Demonic Disposal'. Catchy. There doesn't seem to be anything at all on angelic appearances in the memos, really."

"Oh. _Oh_. Of course! We must have different versions. Well then I suppose it's, uhm, it's classified."

"Right."

"You'll just have to wait and see. If you're around."

"Oh, come on."

"It's very dramatic. That's all I'll say. They become very popular some time around Medieval times, I believe."

"Medevil? What's that?"

"Not sure. It's in quite some time. Some thousands of years."

"How… how long is this supposed to go on for?"

"Oh, uhm, ages. Absolute ages. I've been told I'll be stationed here on Earth for a very long time indeed. Whatever that is."

"Huh."

"And. And you?"

"Dunno, haven't decided yet."

"Is that really up to you to decide?" The angel chides, though Crawly could have sworn there's a flash of merriment in his voice.

"Well as I said, 'making some trouble' has a lot of leeway."

"I might just see you around, then."

"I suppose. Haven't decided if I want to stay yet, have I. Not if I have to hang around in _this_." He gestures at his lanky, bony corporation. Though the warmth of the stone on it really _does_ feel very nice. And this conversation certainly rates among the more interesting Crawly's had in, well. Since time began, and a long while before that too. Angels seem to have got more lively. Or maybe Crawly's standards have just fallen after an eternity in the dullest parts of Hell.

"Right."

"I'll hang around for a bit, I reckon, go exploring."

"Sounds like a plan." The angel gets up. "I'll let you get on with it, then."

"Why?"

"I've got to go on a patrol. If you're going to go exploring anyway."

"A _patrol_?"

"I'm not Guardian of the Eastern Gate for nothing, you know."

"Well, the enemy's right here."

"I'm aware."

"Not sure you're doing a very good job being on watch right now, angel."

"I've been keeping a very close eye on you, haven't I? _Keep your enemies close_. And all that." There's definitely something smug in his voice now.

"Huh. And what, you're just gonna leave an agent of Evil right here on the wall?"

"Oh, no, I'm afraid I'll have to, erh, ask you to leave, as it were."

"Ah."

"If you could remove yourself in an orderly fashion, I'd be much obliged." Crawly scowls at the demure smile on the angel's stupid face, at his hands folded primly behind his back. Then gets up reluctantly and rather more unsteadily than he'd have liked. Takes a few deliberate slow steps away from the angel to look out across the desert. He moves slowly, deliberately, and not just because he's really very unstable on his pathetic two feet.

The angel doesn't move at all. "No funny business now, if you'd be so kind."

Crawly glances back across his shoulder, carefully, studiously, at the lush green landscape behind him.

A moment passes. The angel doesn't move, but his eyes flash back to Eden, out to the desolate bleakness on the other side of the wall. The smile on his lips tenses a little. Crawly crosses his arms behind his back, mirroring the angel's. He flicks out his wings with a good bit of dramatic flair, ready for flight. The angel blinks. Crawly raises a foot, slowly, poises it to take a step forward off the wall.

"WouldyouliketogothroughEden?"

"What's that?" Crawly hides a smirk.

"Would you like to go out through Eden? See it one last time?"

"Oh, I'm sure I shouldn't. Probably not welcome back in."

The angel takes a step forward. "Oh no, what I'll be doing is escorting you out of there."

"Don't bother, I'm sure this way's fine. Wouldn't want to cause any more harm..."

"Well, the harm's already _been_ caused, hasn't it?" The smugness that momentarily slid off the angel's face jumps back on with enthusiasm. He moves to stand next to Crawly and extends an arm towards the garden.

"Well then, sure, I'd be, erh, much obliged." Crawly basks in his victory for all of a second ( _Hell: 2, Heaven 0_ ) before the angel grabs hold of his upper arm and Crawly feels the terrifying, unyielding strength hidden in the angel's gentle corporation.

"Shall we?" He gets steered to the other edge of the wall.

"Erh."

"Quite."

And Crawly doesn't decide to stay on Earth right there and then, he _doesn't_. It doesn't colour his decision as they flutter down and stroll, leisurely, through the Garden, the angel's grip firm but amiable on his arm. And Crawly probably ought to at least try for some wily escape, to use his speed to transform or slip away to cause more trouble. But he lets himself be led, politely and inevitably, under lush trees and across twinkling streams.

The angel is chattering loosely about all the glorious sights they pass until they reach another part of the wall. There's no discernible gate here. But the angel stops, keeps his left hand steady around Crowley's arm, stares him straight in the eye while he talks about some wonderful pink fowl he saw flying east of here just yesterday. And while describing the exact shade of pink of the bird's wings, holding Crawly's gaze, he smashes his right hand into the wall, and a large part of it explodes outwards, leaving a hole easily big enough for Crawly to walk through.

"There we are. Thank you for your cooperation." The angel squeezes his arm, gently, and lets go, folding his hands demurely back together in front of him, though the gleam in his eyes rather betrays his angelic stance.

And that, _that_ is the moment that Crawly decides that yeah, he might just hang around Earth and keep hold of this human-style corporation for a little while longer. Just to see what happens.

[1] Crawly only learns that the angel, like those silly humans, can't see very well in the dark on a drunken night in Babylon . He figures out that he can use that to his advantage that same night. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first published GO fic and my first piece of fanfiction in TEN YEARS. Aaargh. If you've read it, thank you so much - would really appreciate a comment.
> 
> I'm on tumblr as thyra279, please do swing by if you want. It's aaaaaaaall Good Omens over there.


End file.
